In the new sci-fi series Fringe, bioscience goes evil. For the viewer, that's where the fun starts

Fringe's feuding father and son (Noble and Jackson) suss out weird science.

Show me a human fear, and i'll show you a monster. Our ancestors populated dark forests with dragons and uncharted seas with krakens. Sci-fi transmuted commies and nukes into body snatchers and Godzilla. In the 1990s, The X-Files turned post-Vietnam paranoia into an elaborate government-alien conspiracy.

This fall, the tense, compelling Fringe (Fox, Tuesdays, 9 p.m. E.T.) is a 21st century X-Files, with a difference. The conspiracy this time is called The Pattern: someone or something is performing experiments, using humans as guinea pigs. The passengers and crew of a transatlantic flight are skeletonized by flesh-eating bacteria; a prostitute is impregnated...